The staff of the student literary journal, Atlantis, held a reception Thursday night to introduce the newest edition of the publication.

Bristol Books hosted the reception, which began at 6 p.m. Editor Kristina Harmer opened the event by thanking the artists, writers and underwriters who made the journal possible. The staff presented Harmer with a gift, thanking her for her hard work this year. Harmer then introduced next year’s co-editors, this year’s poetry editor Emily White and assistant editor Eric Spencer.

Spencer said he wants to work on getting the Atlantis’ name out more. “There’s still a wide selection of students who, when you say you work at the Atlantis, ask what it is.” Harmer then asked this year’s winner of the Sam Ragan Poetry Award, senior Eric Vithalani, to read his poem “Vehicle.” Vithalani received $100 from the department of creative writing as a prize for the poem, which is the first he has had published. It was one of three he submitted to the journal, and he said he felt this poem “was pretty strong.”

Vithalanthi later read a poem about his parents’ wedding called “Jamnagar, India, August 17, 1961.”

Senior Trent Weatherford read his short story titled “Truth,” about a hotshot journalist’s downfall. It was his first published story. He won the Jesse Rehder Prose Award from the creative writing department and a $100 prize.

“I was really surprised,” he said. “I was happy it was even in it, let alone to be the prose winner and centerfold. It’s a great honor.”

After Weatherford’s reading, Harmer opened the floor for all the writers who contributed to Atlantis to read from their work. Sophomore Jeremy Griffin read from his short story, “You Are Listening,” and Jada Hueber read her poem “Luke 1:26-45.”

The journal is smaller this year than it has been in the past. It is about the size of a trade paperback book, with glossy paper and senior Helen Allen’s painting “Mermaid,” which won first prize in the Atlantis art show, on the cover.

“It looks awesome,” Vithalani said. “They did a really good job.”

Harmer said, “The small size, to me, is more professional, and the glossy paper makes it look more polished.”

In the past, the reception was held at Barnes and Noble’s bookstore on College Road, but this year the staff moved it to the smaller, locally owned Bristol Books in Lumina Station on Eastwood Road. Prose Editor Heather Folan Conklin works at Bristol Books. Harmer said the bookstore is similar to the Atlantis, because it is small and local, and that the store itself was more intimate and private than Barnes and Noble.

“I figured a bookstore is the best place to do it,” Conklin said. “I think an independent bookseller works better than a chain.”

Store manager Nicki Leone wanted to help because Conklin was on the store’s staff. She called the Atlantis “literature in action” and compared it to a series the bookstore ran with the university two years ago called First Editons, where a graduate student would read with a professor from the MFA program. “We’ve done a lot of stuff with the university before and we’re always open to working with them,” Leone said. “We’re interested in literature in all its forms.”